A Classic case of FUD!

Those of you who follow my attempts at emulating an infinite number of monkeys on typewriters and calling them articles will know of Payton Byrd. He seems to have taken great offense with my articles and has tried to refute my statements at all opportunities. While I believe this is a good thing and helps keep me on the straight and narrow I do get exasperated at times when my arguments are debated with misinformed and incomplete knowledge coupled with an inability or refusal to understand Linux technicalities. Perhaps I don't explain myself too well. I promise to try harder in the future.

Recently Payton posted an article where he made some statements which are completely wrong and an attempt to discredit two of my articles which he linked to. You can read his complete article here and it is the most purest and classic case of FUD that I have ever read. The articles of mine that he links to are here and here. In addition he made claims about what I said that is technically slander, not for the first time but I am a peaceful Borg so I keep the BFG packed away.

He states

it's really a bad idea to perform an upgrade on Ubuntu while using the system.

Those of you who know and use Linux will laugh at this. I explained how and why this is possible in my article titled "Why linux can be updated without rebooting". Those of you who use windows know that even windows upgrades itself while in use. He then attempts to explain why with the following statements

Why is that, you ask? Because as the upgrade is happening it starts shutting down services, and until the upgrade is completed some of those services (::ahem:: MySQL) won't start back up.

For starters the services are just restarted after the upgrades have been installed just like some windows upgrades and secondly he uses a database program as an example and he elaborates why in his next statements

Well, if you're hosting a website or doing any kind of work that requires MySQL then you're going to become dead in the water until the upgrade completely finishes and that can take a very long time.

Now I have a couple Ubuntu servers that use the MySQL database and my own personal computer also uses it. When I am upgrading MYSQL, it does not stop during the upgrade at all. When the package has finished installing it then restarts MySQL which takes no longer than thirty seconds. I don't know about you but that is not a long time for me. This is from personal experience on production servers running a web mail system. Do you know what takes a really long time for me? When windows just has to restart itself after installing a malicious programs update. On a 2003 exchange server that takes at least thirty minutes and has to happen once a month. There goes your five ball uptime statistics and it is not even a system related update. Even normal windows computers often need to be restarted after their updates and for a modern computer that takes about five minutes. Hmmm five minutes of all services being unavailable against thirty seconds for a single service. You do the math.

Now comes the real rib tickler. He calls me out with this statement

I call out the ITtoolbox Blogger for his assertion that it's OK to let GNU/Linux kill your processes in order to change the size of the swap partition.

Notice he doesn't use names in his article and even uses the plural form at the start but it is as clear as the air between your eyes and monitor just who he is targetting. For the record I did not state that it is OK to let the kernel kill anything, I only stated what would happen if you don't do things the correct way. You can read the comments at the end of this article for what he is referring too.

Like I stated in my title this is the purest form of classic FUD that I have ever seen. The very fact that he is attacking and trying to discredit my knowledge is comical and an indication that he feels threatened. The only reason I am replying is to bring it to your attention so you can make an informed decision about whether I am a knowledgable professional or a blithering idiot. Please let me know what you think as I think it is time for others besides me to help blow away this FUD smokescreen.

34 Comments

I enjoy debating with Peyton from time to time, but he does frequently talk opinion and not facts. This is evident in a recent article where he declares that bugs get fixed faster in commercial software then in Open Source software. I reduced the amount of Linux articles that I write even though they get the greatest readership. It is just not worth it to me to continue to have these battles with people who are emotionally attached to vendors.

Sorry, but I am speaking entirely from EXPERIENCE which is indeed fact. Over the weekend I had occassion to utilize an UltimateLAMP virtual appliance server to host TikiWiki. While attempting to install Emacs from the repository I kept getting 404 errors. The UltimateLAMP virtual appliance on VMWare's site is based on Breezy, which is Ubuntu 5.10. Apparently, the vaunted repository system has abandoned Breezy altogether and so the old version of Emacs being requested (because that's what the Breezy repository index has listed) no longer is being hosted in the official repository. I decided that since Breezy isn't supported that I'd being the step-by-step process of upgrading from Breezy to Dapper and then from Dapper to Edgy.

During the update from Breezy to Dapper the MySQL service went down and wouldn't come back up. This was after Apache had gone down but didn't restart automatically, but I was able to restart it manually. After nearly 24 hours of the system installing the upgrade I rebooted the VM in hopes that MySQL would start. No go. It was dead in the water. As a matter of fact, Gnome was also dead as I got dumped to a console terminal. Thank God I was smart enough to take a VMWare snapshot before performing the upgrade! This is not fiction, this is not the rantings up an anti-Linux shill. This is the reality of the situation. Performing this upgrade was a HORRIBLE experience and one that I would never recommend to anyone, EVER. I normally wouldn't have even contemplated performing the upgrade with the services running, but you were so confident in the ability to upgrade Ubuntu on the fly that I figured I'd give it a shot. I'm even willing to send you the snapshot of the VMWare image and let YOU attempt the upgrade with everything up and running. Hell, just go get the UltimateLAMP VMWare image from the VMWare site and attempt the upgrade. I had not installed or uninstalled anything from it as the repository was basically broken without performing the upgrade.

The next time you call me a liar you should really think about asking about exactly what happened and where I'm getting my information from. This is beyond the pale of ethical discourse by accusing me of libel.

For the kernel to shut down processes is a last resort thing when there is no more memory. It shuts down the least used processes first so the active program can at least continue running. This is a much more graceful way of handling out of memory errors and the system doesn't completely lock up. How it decides exactly what to shut down is actually quite complicated and too much to explain simply in a quick comment.

Come on, accuse me of libel. The text in bold CLEARLY indicates your belief that it's OK to let the kernel just start killing processes when it wants to because it's more "elegant" than getting a memory error. The reality is that BOTH are fundamentally bad and should not be encouraged.

@Payton what my comment clearly states is exactly what happens in a simplified manner. It in no way shape or form implies any belief of mine. I do not need to accuse you of anything as your own words show. If I am wrong then will someone other than Payton please correct me.

In your previous rant where you accuse me of propaganda and spreading misinformation you neglected to supply those very important details. Now that you have supplied those details it quite clearly shows that your motive was to spread FUD. You continuously tell me to verify my statements yet do no such thing yourself. Anyone reading your post would assume a current version of Ubuntu and would be misinformed. The case is now quite clear the version used is five versions before the current one and as such very old in terms of Linux distributions.

For starters, to be running a breezy based distribution in these current times shows that you were not keeping up with updates. Who knows what sort of security holes you were leaving open and as such there is no way to guarantee the pristine state of your system. I pity the people that were relying on that system for their data security. No administrator worth their salt should leave a system running that old.

Secondly you were running a system under a virtual machine. You have neglected to say what version of vm you were using but I can guess it is at least as old as the image you were running. They have problems of their own and introduce factors that I don't even want to think about. A vm that is around two years old I would not trust enough to be used as a production server.

Thirdly from the problems you described it appears that you just started upgrading without first checking the ubuntu website to make sure that everything would work or verifying that there is still a repository for an unsupported version. Ubuntu clearly states that unless it is a long term support version (ie. dapper) then they only provide official support for eighteen months. The version you tried to upgrade is known to have had upgrading problems. and about two minutes on google will give you all the information you need.

So I am not surprised you had problems that could have been avoided with a little forethought and it clearly shows your experience. When I work on our production servers, on real machines, not virtual ones, I always, ALWAYS, make sure that I know exactly what the outcome will be before I start working on it. If I am in doubt I will test on a clone machine first to be sure. Something you can easily do with your virtual machine.

You tried to do a professional's work and failed, then targeted your article at the general masses which to my mind is classic FUD. So let me leave you with one little thought that I am sure will help you if you take it to heart. A good tradesman never blames his tools.

On the same note as what Locutus said. If you had been doing the exact same installation with an MS based OS on a VM I'm willing to bet that you would receive no support from them. I worked on a few different support teams for various MS products and in every instance running software on a VM is strictly unsupported.

I have reread your quoted material several times and I believe I have found the flaw . . .

The text in bold CLEARLY indicates your belief that it's OK to let the kernel just start killing processes when it wants to because it's more "elegant" than getting a memory error.

Actually, the quoted material indicates that Locutus has the opinion that the kernel shutting down the processes starting with the least used process first is a better way of handling out of memory errors than is throwing a memory error and crashing. The quote does not indicate a "belief that it's OK to let the kernel just start killing processes when it wants to" but rather a belief that, as a last resort, this is a more elegant solution to a critical problem.

I thoroughly agree with Locutus on that point.

Now, I am about to open myself up to your flame thrower as I make the next statement. I am not a Linux user (not any flavor of Linux); however, I have helped develop systems that had to deal with memory allocation and I was responsible for the dynamic memory allocation module. One of the battles I fought (and, unfortunately, lost) was for a means of tracking the "aging" of allocated memory once it had been provided to user modules. At that time, my desire was to be able to identify allocated memory that had a high probability of no longer being used (as in memory leaks usually ;-) and reclaiming it when I ran into a problem providing a buffer. Having lost that battle, I was forced to put the one and only STOP command in the system into my module . . . which meant that every time someone created a memory leak and started testing, I got called because "the system crashed in your memory allocation module" (and, if they got it into production first, the call was usually about 03:30!). (In fact, I got calls for the next _10_years_ because of that stupid STOP command! ;-)

I finally got them to provide for some control information within the buffers and to slightly modify the module so that it used that data. The result was that, under stress conditions (as in, when there were problems allocating memory buffers), the module would retrieve the "lost" buffers and usually that kept the system alive.

All of that is to say that I have fought this battle in the past and have never liked the idea of crashing a system because of memory allocation issues unless there is no other alternative.

In your previous rant where you accuse me of propaganda and spreading misinformation you neglected to supply those very important details.

And here's the difference; I can actually back up what I'm saying. Whenever you get challenged on the details you start screaming FUD.

Ubuntu Breezy is less than three years old. I hardly see how it should be fallen to the wayside. Microsoft was slaughtered for releasing 98 SE, ME, Win2k in rapid succession, people said that they were forcing upgrades too quickly. Well, what do you say about Ubuntu? Their policy is to only officially support the current version and the previous version. How is that responsible for the customers.

Also, why should an organization who decides to deploy a production server on a stable OS have to encounter forced upgrades? I thought this was the beauty of open source? Don't people constantly try to bash Microsoft for "forced obsolescence?" Microsoft backs their operating systems for a minimum of 8 years, and typically more than that. Windows 98 just went off of support two years ago. Windows 2000 is just now end-of-lifing.

For starters, to be running a breezy based distribution in these current times shows that you were not keeping up with updates.

Evidently you still aren't reading the details. The facts are that if you're looking for a virtual appliance for TikiWiki your only option is UltimateLAMP. The thing is a little old (built in late 2005), but I would expect to be able to successfully upgrade it to a newer release through the vaunted repository system. It was a complete and utter failure. So, now I've had complete and utter failure upgrading from 5.10 to 6.06, and 6.06 to 6.10. Please tell me how wonderful the repository system is again!

Secondly you were running a system under a virtual machine. You have neglected to say what version of vm you were using but I can guess it is at least as old as the image you were running. They have problems of their own and introduce factors that I don't even want to think about. A vm that is around two years old I would not trust enough to be used as a production server.

Are you saying that running in VMWare Server would cause a failure trying to upgrade Ubuntu? Exactly how would that happen? Is there magical code in VMWare that looks like this:void InsertSideEffects(){ switch(OS) { case 00: // Ubuntu 5.10 crapOutUpgrade(); break;

default; beNice(); break; }}

This is ridiculous, even for you. Also, I did clearly state that I got the image from the VMWare website. Not a fansite. Not some site where some 133t Hax0rs are aggregating all the vmware appliances ever made, this came directly from VMWare's official website. Can I make that clearer?

Thirdly from the problems you described it appears that you just started upgrading without first checking the ubuntu website to make sure that everything would work or verifying that there is still a repository for an unsupported version. Ubuntu clearly states that unless it is a long term support version (ie. dapper) then they only provide official support for eighteen months. The version you tried to upgrade is known to have had upgrading problems. and about two minutes on google will give you all the information you need.

Wait, let me get this straight.... Ubuntu only supports code from the last 18 months, and yet this is supposed to be the operating system for humans? Does anyone at Ubuntu ever actually deploy this stuff to real humans? Put Ubuntu on 100 desktops, give them away to 100 people at random (say, at a department store's front door). Make sure automatic updates are turned on. The user will never notice the automatic updates UNTIL they don't work any more... in 18 months. Absolutely, positively, unconditionally unacceptable. At least Red Hat has the good sense to support stuff for many years.

So I am not surprised you had problems that could have been avoided with a little forethought and it clearly shows your experience.

How much experience is this supposed to take? I thought Ubuntu was so freaking wonderful that you can do it while working away on your system. That's what you blogged, anyways. I didn't see any disclaimer about "Go read Ubuntu's website for 3 hours before doing the upgrade, and if your OS is more than 18 months old then you're screwed, so don't even try it."

@philter

On the same note as what Locutus said. If you had been doing the exact same installation with an MS based OS on a VM I'm willing to bet that you would receive no support from them. I worked on a few different support teams for various MS products and in every instance running software on a VM is strictly unsupported.

And you'd loose that bet. Microsoft fully supports installations of Windows running in MS Virtual Server and MS Virtual PC just as if they were running on bare metal. I've also never had a problem getting support running Windows on VMWare. I've worked at several places that standardize on running EVERYTHING in VMWare and they NEVER have a problem getting support from Microsoft.

A sample size of one is a 100% population sample in a population of one. I was stating facts as they happened to me. I've done this on two separate occasions, and both times the results are incontrovertible. I'm not the one making sweeping statements about how many rainbows and butterflies are going to dance around your desk while changing your swap partition or performing a full system upgrade while trying to do useful work at the same time.

Also, stating that something doesn't work doesn't make someone a shill for Microsoft or anyone else. That's simply the tactic of the coward who says "Hey, what's that over there" before running for the hills.

Microsoft was slaughtered for releasing 98 SE, ME, Win2k in rapid succession, people said that they were forcing upgrades too quickly. Well, what do you say about Ubuntu?

You don't have to pay for Ubuntu. They can set any terms they want and if you don't like it you don't have to use it.

The facts are that if you're looking for a virtual appliance for TikiWiki your only option is UltimateLAMP.

Wrong! There is nothing stopping you from making your own.

but I would expect to be able to successfully upgrade it to a newer release through the vaunted repository system.

If you did those upgrades in a timely manner then there would be no problem. As it is too old then a different route could be taken but I believe it could still be done. A couple of minutes with google shows other repositories for breezy.

At least Red Hat has the good sense to support stuff for many years.

Their support system is not for free. Ubuntu's long term support edition (ie dapper) is supported for many years and its, er, free.

I thought Ubuntu was so freaking wonderful that you can do it while working away on your system.

And I thought my big toe was stuck out of bed so I got up to tuck it in. There is a big difference between thinking and knowing. I know and I do it all the time on updated and upgraded real machines.

The facts are that if you're looking for a virtual appliance for TikiWiki your only option is UltimateLAMP.

Wrong! There is nothing stopping you from making your own

I said looking for not looking to build! Not everyone has the time or desire to jump up and down giddily when confronted with the proposition of recreating the wheel by installing a clean OS, downloading the dependencies from Source Forge, compiling it, setting it up, getting MySQL configured, and praying everything works.

A couple of minutes with google shows other repositories for breezy.

And exactly why should I use them? They aren't the Cananical supported repositories? THIS IS MY POINT ABOUT REPOSITORIES AND WHY THEY ARE SUCH A HORRIBLE IDEA!!!

Ubuntu's long term support edition (ie dapper) is supported for many years and its, er, free.

Are you kidding me? You consider 18-months as long-term support? Geez, I'm tempted to find out who your employer is and send him a link to this thread. If they understood that vast irresponsibility in the things you have posted in this single entry then you'd probably be looking for a new job. You may be scoring points with the pitch-fork and mob crowd who are already behind the FSF and GNU/Linux, but business owners care more about being able to get support in 5 years than they are in saving $450 today.

I know and I do it all the time on updated and upgraded real machines.

So you're back to blaming VMWare? At least your consistent even when presented with a big, giant clue.

Why do you insist on beating a dead horse? In the current Ubuntu to install tikiwiki "aptitude install tikiwiki" !!!!! If you want everything handed to you then you have to accept what you are given. You are making yourself look more and more, er, inconsistant to put it politely.

Are you kidding me? You consider 18-months as long-term support?

You really don't think before you start typing do you? Ubuntu's dapper long term support is three years on the desktop and five years on the server.

VMWare could definitely be a factor for that age. You mentioned microsofts virtual machine which at that time was newly released and had problems of its own. You say I am consistant and I thank you for that however you seem to get your times and versions very confused.

My employers know about my blog and I encourage them to read it but thanks for the offer of sending them the link. You can be assured that at least some of your clients or potential clients/employers will read this blog and see you for what you are.

You really don't think before you start typing do you? Ubuntu's dapper long term support is three years on the desktop and five years on the server.

Dapper was released on July 1, 2006, which was 19 months ago. That means that as of January 1 of this year Breezy went off support. Again, this is like saying that Microsoft is allowed to stop supporting XP in May of this year because Vista was released in November of 2006. Does that make a lick of sense to you?

How do you figure that VMWare would be a factor based on age? The age of what, the image? The VMWare Server? Please elaborate. The more you harp on VMWare causing the problem the more credibility you loose. VMware isn't swapping up the bits going onto the hard drive only when performing an upgrade of Breezy. The odds of that are so astronomical as to be ridiculous. The fact of the matter is that the upgrade process for a reasonably aged system (19 months) to even the next version up is broken. After the upgrade both MySQL and Gnome were completely broken. Most server leases are a minimum of 24 months. If you leased a new server in March 2006 and put the latest Ubuntu server on it, you would have installed Breezy. Now, before the lease is even over, in December of 2007 you're forced to upgrade at least to Dapper or else you can forget about official patches! And, this forced upgrade is for a server that is going to go out of service in three months. Does that at all sound like a reasonable way to support an operating system?

Imagine if an ISV was leasing new servers with Windows Server 2003 R2 on them in March 2006 and today when Windows Server 2008 everyone was told "OK, that's it, no more support for Windows Server 2003 R2!" Microsoft would be back in front of the judge in less than a week. Every politician around the world would be calling for Ballmer's head!

YOU CANNOT HAVE A DOUBLE STANDARD ABOUT WHAT'S FAIR FOR OPEN SOURCE AND WHAT'S FAIR FOR CLOSED SOURCE.

Again, you fail to punch a hole in either of my arguments from my "rant" and yet you accused me of libel. I was 100% telling the honest truth then, and I'm 100% telling the truth now. You cannot simply say "Oh, it's 19 months old, that's too ancient to expect it to upgrade correctly!" Sorry, it just simply doesn't pass the stink test. If it smells like dog poo.....

Oh, and what's this crap about having to do an incremental upgrades? With XP I can upgrade any 32-bit version of Windows. I know, the incremental upgrade thing is a requirement of the repository system which is used to perform the updages, otherwise there's simply be a big tarball of dependencies you could just plop down on the server and run a script that would figure out what's there and put the right stuff in place, just like Windows does. Oh, and Mac OS X doesn't force you to upgrade step-by-step either. This seems to be a phenomenon unique to repository-based systems. Again, please tell me where the value is in letting someone who is trying to avoid accountability tell me that I must upgrade from 5.10 to 6.06 to 6.10 to 7.0x to 7.1x.... AND THAT IS JUST IN THE LAST 19 MONTHS!!!

Maybe the Ubuntu crowd should actually figure out what truly makes a new upgrade and better manage that vaunted repository so that people don't have to go through forced upgrades to keep their software up-to-date.

I'm stilling trying to wrap my brain around the idea of Microsoft having the authority to tell you you're not allowed to upgrade Photoshop any longer because someone at MS decided it wasn't worth the effort. Why do I have to upgrade my OS to simply INSTALL emacs???? Oh, yeah, because someone at Ubuntu has been anointed the gatekeeper of the repository and that person doesn't want to be bothered with keeping up a repository for an operating system that's only 19 months removed from being the newest version!

Yes they were, and that is my point. There is a double-standard here in that Microsoft is not allowed to release major upgrades in succession, but Ubuntu gets a free pass on going through THREE major versions in 19 months and a FOURTH is on the near horizon.

"There is a double-standard here in that Microsoft is not allowed to release major upgrades in succession"

. Quote me chapter and verse. This is yet another example of unsubstantiated claims on your part, ie FUD.

Microsoft is quite able and allowed to release major upgrades in succession and still does although it disguises them as service packs. All Microsoft wished to do at those times (and we are talking about 98se, me, win2k here) is garner revenue because those upgrades were not free, there was no set time period that these would happen and the releases were extremely buggy (ie, win me which was a real quality piece of work). Sure people complained but that was because at that time they had no choice. Now they do and your very actions and words show exactly how aware and frightened you are of those choices.

Ubuntu makes it quite clear that they have a set release cycle and they stick to that cycle. They do not have a secret agenda. They are completely open in what they do which you cannot say about microsoft. If you do not wish to agree to their publicized agenda then you are quite free to go elsewhere. Microsoft does not give you a choice. You either pay to upgrade to their latest version or you miss out on the programs that only support the newest version. At least with open source projects, maintained programs keep up with the latest in distributions.

I think that this horse has been beaten enough. Face it Payton you do not have a leg to stand on. There is nothing you can say that will save your face while you continue to try and stuff open source into a proprietary mold. For once call a spade a spade and stick with your shovel.

Quote me chapter and verse. This is yet another example of unsubstantiated claims on your part, ie FUD.

From pneaveill:

Microsoft was slaughtered for releasing 98 SE, ME, Win2k in rapid succession, people said that they were forcing upgrades too quickly.

This is indeed the popular opinion on Microsoft's period of rapid releases of OS upgrades in the late '90s. Go back and do some research on the beating they took in the press about it. There's nothing unsubstantiated about it at all.

They do not have a secret agenda.

Yes, they do: Minimize their accountability profile. It's hard work to maintain an older version of your OS. You make the analogy that Microsoft does it through Service Packs, but you don't see Microsoft saying that they will stop supporting a service pack after 18 months. Windows XP had been out for over 4 years when Microsoft stopped making security patches for pre-SP1 installations.

I really am coming to the conclusion that you are incapable of accepting facts that do not fit into your nice little open-source-centric "reality". Matt Moran has recently had to deal with this exact subject over on his blog. Facts are facts, and as much as you want to dismiss them as FUD, they remain facts.

For those newbies needing a little info on the FUD, it stands for fear, uncertainty and doubt. IT is often done by someone claiming superior intellect, leadership skills (as in politics) or whatever. For a bit of info on the various brands of linux related FUD over the years, here is a link http://www.linux.com/articles/44316

@payton Go back and do some research on the beating they took in the press about it.

Indeed they took a beating from the press over ME. Rightly so. But, if we are suggesting reading material for possible motives on the issue, let us also consider the threats of M$ being taken to court and even some congress-persons getting involved. It was a cobbled kernel from the very beginning to attempt to squeeze more money out of a naive public unaware of the choices they have. Now we do have choices and this scares people. Scared people tend to create FUD regardless of the info presented to them.

Thank you for proving my point once again. Locutus cannot seem to get it through his head that there is indeed a double-standard and it's guys like him that are at the forefront of pushing that double-standard. This is why I've called him out on his propaganda campaign and am blowing big holes in his false statements about the infallibility of the GNU/Linux way of doing things.

I also want to thank you for proving my point again that every time the open source zealots are faced with reality they instantly start yelling "FUD! FUD! FUD!" like it's going to make reality magically change.

You're sadly mistaken if you think I'm scared of Ubuntu. That project has so many things working it against it that it's not even funny, and they are all self-imposed and will continue to be as long as guys like Locutus have this pie-in-the-sky idea about the socialist utopia that Ubuntu seems to be at the center of.

What does scare me are people like Richard Stallman who have attempted to destroy capitalism by cleverly using the devices that form the foundation of capitalism against itself. This isn't a pro-Microsoft thing; this is a cultural thing, and one that I'm not going to take lying down. It doesn't matter to me if it's Windows or Mac OS X or any other operating system that is actually sold for money and the code is paid for when the developer writes it. Whatever the target of the anti-capitalism movement focuses on need to be properly defended against the malicious attacks that are not based in reality while ignoring the fallacies of their sacred cows.

@payton Not sure this is about capitalism, I think it is more a matter of corporate greed and control. *nix was built on the idea that we can have more control over our systems. If we muck something up, then we are to blame, but at least we have the opportunity to learn something in the process.

Ubuntu (and other *nix systems) offer the updates at regular times and most state it honestly. What this requires is a bit of updating of the software, not major hardware changes as with other systems. Personally, what I have issues with is that each time someone gets a burr up their saddle, I have to swap out 35-50 units.

Unless I missed something, you seem to have tried something in a non-standard way, it failed and now you seem to be calling all *nix FUD. On the other hand, many of us operate in multiple-OS environments daily and make it work.

Why does this post seem nothing more than Linux Fanboys whining while a Microsoft fanboy keeps whining right back.

It is amazing how unobjective some many people in IT really are. We are supposed to be the best and the brightest, yet at the end of the day, these arguments just make us sound stupid.

Windows has tons of issues and Vista was a disaster. Ubuntu has come a long way in getting Linux more acceptable by the mainstream audiences, but it's just not there yet. Normal everyday users just aren't going to be comfortable using it. Maybe one day. But geez, talk about a subjective argument on both sides.

I won't get into the details that you guys have already covered, but I will say this:

That exact upgrade path was a disaster for me as well, but I had not been keeping up with updates. I also didn't do much prep work before I decided to go forward. So I blame myself for all of it. It was also a home web server with little to no importance.

Also, I think the real fault here, is that no one should use an intermediate release to build a virtual appliance. Tikiwiki should have used a LTS version (ie Dapper) instead. To me, that's just ignorance and setting the table for trouble.

I totally agree with you Peter which is why I am trying to restrain myself. I and my integrity was attacked and I felt bound to respond which then degenerated into the schoolyard squabble you are rightly disgusted about.

I couldn't agree with you more about the UltimateLAMP assemblers using a non-RTS version of Ubuntu. Rest assured, if I were to ever create an UltimateLAMP style appliance it would be based on a long-term-supported OS. I'm actually thinking about creating an UltimateWAMP appliance with Windows Server 2008 Standard Server Core. Of course, I couldn't release this to the wild, but I could put together a single MSI file with all the WAMP-ish stuff in it and make that available.

The great thing about using the Server Core edition of Windows Server is that no GUI is installed and everything is done through Windows PowerShell, which rocks my world. Server Core also does a very minimal install and you have to selectively add the server roles you want to utilize. If it proves easy to work with I'll probably migrate my AD server to it.

Locutus and Payton Both of you should be ashamed of yourselves. Allowing a matter to two separate opinions to interfere with the professionalism that ITTOOLBOX is suppose to be founded upon. This is nothing more that a school yard rant between the both of you. I find it personally and professionally revolting that two (respected) bloggers should degrade, yes degrade, themselves to such a level.

If I had it my way, I would make both of you go get a branch off the willow tree and take you both one at a time out behind the woodshed. Both of you should be ashamed of yourselves. At just agree to disagree with a process that most users are willing and may not be willing to do

Firstly, sorry for being so late to the "discussion" with Payton but a very close family tragedy is keeping me very occupied. I find it amazing that Payton can complain about the failure of evaluation software in a production environment. Directly from the UltimateLAMP website:

This fully functional environment running in VMware Player allows you to easily try and evaluate a number of LAMP stack products without requiring any setup or configuration. This demonstration records all user entered information for later reference, indeed you will find a wealth of information already available within a number of the Product Recommendations starting with the supplied Documentation.

Does your client know that you are using evaluation software that is based on products that have not been updated since 2006? Again from the UltimateLAMP website:

This VMware virtual machine is based on the provided Browser Appliance which uses Ubuntu 5.10 and FireFox (1.0 and 1.5).

Follow the links to the Browser Appliance software to find that it has not been updated since 23 June 2006.

How much malware got through this outdated software? Why were you trying to update a distro from the Ubuntu web site when UltimateLAMP is only based on Ubuntu Breezy? Is that because you didn't want to pay ARABX for fully configured and supported installations?

Canonical also clearly state the support time for each version. If Payton had updated to 6.06 before 5.10 support expired he would still be supported.

This isn't for a client, it's for a community effort around an obscure piece of hardware. There is no "client" to get mad. Also, you seem to be blaming me for not upgrading UltimateLAMP from 5.10 to 6.06 before the end of support for Breezy. Had I known that Breezy was unsupported I would have avoided UltimateLAMP altogether and went forward with using TikiWiki on WAMP. Hindsight is indeed 20/20. It still doesn't change the argument that an 18-month support cycle is ridiculous.

I was going to make helpful suggestions to both Locutus and Payton, until I looked at other blogs and saw that they have been ding-donging each other pointlessly for ages. I will keep quiet.

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The underlying technical issue may be worth a comment, though: the difference between an upgrade and an update. (A pity the words sound so similar.)

There seems to be a growing tendency to assume that a new version, an "upgrade", should drop into place and automatically pick up all your old data and settings, just as if it were a minor update. It seems to me that an upgrade is an incompatible change, that is what makes it different from an update. Therefore it is best treated as a clean install, after saving your data. (But you do regular backups anyway, right?)

I learnt that the hard way back in the old MSDOS days. Using Microsoft's Save and Restore programs was a waste of time. The new version of Restore invariably refused to read the old version's Save files. Thanks, Microsoft!

No version of Windows has ever attempted to migrate data and settings automatically from earlier versions. (I do not know about Vista, correct me if I am wrong.) WinXP offered a tool to help will the migration, but I (pre)judged that to be clunky and a probable waste of time.

So Ubuntu/Linux is trying something new and difficult with its "automatic" upgrades - but it is not working yet!

Edgy (v7.04) offered to migrate your old settings, then made you wait more than a minute before telling you it could not find any.Gutsy (v7.10) is a bit better. It does pick up your desktop settings and menu items. Unfortunately, it does not install any of the programs to go with those menu items, so they don't work. Nice try, but no prize yet.

My advice is to stick with clean installations followed by manual settings and data migration. And a wise person always tries the new version on a test computer first.

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